Roy Jemison emigrated from Billingham, County Durham in North East England during the Canadian Centennial, brought to Canada as a child with his older sister by parents seeking a better life for themselves and their children, which they found through a lot of hard work and determination. The family moved into an apartment in Toronto in the cold Canadian winter, where Roy's mother experienced her first frostbite walking home with groceries from the Dominion Store and where a young English boy's first introduction to Canada's national game of ice hockey and the NHL was seeing the Leafs win the Stanley Cup on television.
After going to school in Scarborough, Roy's first career was as a meteorological technician (surface and upper air weather observer and ozone observer) with Environment Canada and then as a flight services specialist with Nav Canada, serving at various postings across Canada's far north, including Churchill in the Thompson constituency where he lived for several years.
Today, Roy is a communications consultant by profession, with decades of experience working in creative, account management and sales roles with various ad agencies and print and broadcast media outlets.
Roy's meteorological science background has informed a lifelong interest in climate and concern about climate change, and fueled his involvement in a new role to help grow Manitoba's alternative energy industry with a local solar PV systems design and installation company.
Roy became politically active in opposition to the increasingly ideological conservative government of Steven Harper, which concerned him greatly, and concerns him more so today when he sees it emulated by provincial governments like the Pallister-Stefanson PCs.
As Director of Communications for the Manitoba Liberal Party, Roy believes it is very important for him to speak out and carry the MLP message to all corners of the province.
As an MLA, working to fix health care will be Roy's top priority.
Health care for northern First Nations is in a particularly dire state of emergency from lack of staff and resources in federally and provincially operated health care facilities, while health care in Thompson and other communities isn't much better.
Nurses especially are leaving the system in droves because they're being burned out from overwork and not enough support. Our goal is to grow Manitoba’s public health care system and make it stable for future generations, starting with solving the staffing issue by immediately offering retention bonuses of $10,000 to nurses and health professionals in the public system and a $5,000 bonus to Healthcare Workers and Team Members, including homecare workers. A separate $10,000 bonus will be issued for nurses and health professionals who return to the public system.
We also need to train more people from the north to work in the north, and we would establish a Doctor of Medicine (MD) Degree Program at the University of Brandon affiliated with the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine focused on training physicians for rural and northern communities.
Growing a green economy and Manitoba's place in it is also one of Roy's priorities.
The manufacturing and mining opportunities for Manitoba to provide critical minerals to the EV and battery storage manufacturing supply chain are immense, but Manitoba needs to develop it responsibly, with strong protections of our water and wildlife, respect for the rights of the land's Indigenous owners, and with the wealth shared.
Roy is committed to the MLP's path forward on reconciliation.
Indigenous peoples continue to face systemic discrimination when trying to access provincial services: health, education, justice, CFS, and employment. At the same time, the Government of Manitoba routinely imposes on First Nations and Métis communities projects and laws without engaging proper consultations.
This must change.
We need to work in full partnership with Indigenous leadership on an ongoing basis and have their continual input into any proposed changes that will affect their communities.
Roy humbly asks for your vote to get Northern Manitoba the attention from government it deserves. No more being ignored by those calling the shots for the party in power because they either take your vote for granted or because you’ll never vote for them.
The Manitoba Liberal Party has always stood up for the communities and the people of the North. We’d make sure Northern Manitoba concerns are put front and centre.